(Ir)Resistable Stairs: Disability, Public Health, and the Built Environment
Irresistible staircases are material symbols for the “new public health.” Popularized by sustainability standards and health-centered approaches to architecture and urbanism, they intend to motivate health-centered behaviors. This talk uses critical disability theory to analyze built forms, visual and textual narratives, and works of art, showing that the irresistible staircase aims to both produce desires for health and quell resistance. It traces irresistible staircases as they appear in Nashville, Tennessee, a city with a dedicated public health urban plan. Then, it considers the broader context of resistance to stairs by disability activists, who propose alternative desiring practices.
Join the Program in Disability Studies to hear from Aimi Hamraie (they/them), Associate Professor of Medicine, Health, & Society and American Studies at Vanderbilt University, and director of the Critical Design Lab. Hamraie is the author of Building Access: Universal Design and the Politics of Disability (University of Minnesota Press, 2017) and host of the Contra* podcast on disability and design. They are a member of the U.S. Access Board and a 2022 United States Artists Fellow.
Join the Zoom meeting at the following link: https://georgetown.zoom.us/j/95863589180